Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

Question: If Doc Ock were to die, would the arms attached to him also die? Also, if they did, could they be removed from him, and attached to someone else and come back to life?

Answer: It's hard to say. The film shows Doc Ock dying, and the arms seem to "die" with him. (Notice the lights on them slowly blinking out as he sinks into the water.) But at the same time, we don't know 100% how they work, so there's always a chance if they were removed and attached to someone else, they may come back alive and resume their "mission." Outside of the inhibitor chip, which seemed to have its own power source, the arms themselves didn't seem to "come alive" until the unit attached itself to his spine. So I always assumed they got their power/electricity from a host body. Which would explain why they appeared to "die" when Ock died.

TedStixon

Answer: How the tentacles work in the film differ a bit from the comics, so any answer would be speculation (and not really relevant since any future Doc Ock movie character is going to be a reboot with rules based on the writers' whims). In the film, the tentacles were attached to his nervous system along the spinal cord and he was able to control them mentally (mentally controlled prosthetics are a real thing). In the comics, they were more remote-controlled and his exposure to radiation gave him telepathic control over them and he could control them psionically, even when severed from his body. In the film, the tentacles had been built with more A.I. than in the comics, and the blast from his sun experiment actually caused the tentacles to gain control of Doc Ock because of the A.I. If Doc Ock died, the tentacles could continue to "live" if they had a power source. They could then be attached to someone else in the same manner, i.e. connected to the nervous system. However, whether or not they would be in control of that person or "alive", without going through another similar accident, would be speculation and up to the writer.

Bishop73

Question: When Beetlejuice tried to get the Maitland's business - I don't recall hearing what he expected for payment from them - does anyone know?

Answer: He didn't really talk about payment from the Maitlands. He made it seem like he was good at getting rid of the living and just wanted to help out. But really, he was trying to get "hired" so they would say his name 3 times so he could be summoned. Then by marrying Lydia, he could escape the Neitherworld.

Bishop73

Question: 2 questions: 1. What Is the significanceof the Deathly Hallows story (Luna's dad wears it around his neck, is it some sort of religion?), and 2. Why did Dumbledore draw the symbol in correspondence with Grindlewald?

dannydandan8888

Answer: It's a bit complicated. The Deathly Hallows were not tied to any religion but to mythology. They were the three powerful and revered magical objects (the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Cloak of Invisibility) that, through history and legend, were believed to give whoever possessed them immense power and mastery over death. The Deathly Hallows symbol, like the one Mr. Lovegood wore, is a circle, a triangle, and a straight line that represent the three objects.Voldemort only coveted the Elder Wand, wielded by Dumbledore, because it was the most powerful wand in the world. Dumbledore won the wand from his former friend, the evil wizard, Gellert Grindelwald, after defeating him in a fierce duel. Mr. Lovegood merely serves as a plot device to explain the significance and lore of the Hallows that were tied to Harry's ancestors, the Peverells. Dumbledore placed the Deathly Hallows symbol in the book as a clue to Hermione about the Elder Wand's importance. In the book, when Harry became the Elder Wand's master, he chose to return it to Dumbledore's tomb; in the movie, he destroys the wand. He deliberately dropped the Resurrection Stone in the Forbidden Forest so that no-one, including himself, would be tempted to summon a spirit from the Netherworld. He kept the cloak, that he had inherited from his father. Harry understood that truly "mastering" death was not fearing it.

raywest

Question: Why would Ben/Riley/Abigail need to go all the way to Philadelphia to see the Silence Dogood letters? Surely they would have been available online in 2004 when this movie was made? Ian found info on "Pass and Stow" online. (01:07:05 - 01:14:05)

History_Movie_Nerd

Answer: In reality, they wouldn't...the only reason they go to Philadelphia is to advance the plot. This has been discussed by numerous critics and can be classified as a mistake (either a "Deliberate Mistake", or character stupidity).

The glasses! And of course one can presume the didn't know specifically what they where looking for.

Question: Why didn't Superman spin the world (and time) backwards enough to prevent the nuke from exploding in the first place? Wouldn't that have saved a lot more lives?

briggs

Answer: Just to clarify: Superman didn't spin the Earth backwards. We just see the world turning backwards when he went back in time. Of course this doesn't answer your question and it shows how difficult it is to write a good time travel story that doesn't leave the audience thinking of better ways to solve problems.

I guess the way they wrote it, Superman got to be the hero and also get the girl, not really too bad of an outcome.

briggs

Answer: Well yes. This is actually a perfect thing to submit for a Stupidity. Cause it's just bad writing all around.

Quantom X

Question: When Cal and Jack escort Rose to a boat to get off the ship, we see a father saying goodbye to his wife and daughters. What is the name of this actor? Was he credited?

Answer: If you mean the one who says, "It's goodbye for a little while...", the actor's name is John Walcutt. He's credited as "1st Class Husband."

Question: In the droid factory, when the smasher crushes what Anakin's arm is trapped in, his lightsaber shoots out, but how is it when his arm is released from it, it's now back in his hand as if it never shot out? It seems too noticeable to be a mistake.

Answer: I watched the clip on YouTube. It's hard to see, but Anakin's light saber is always in his hand. Just after the light blade is switched off, the sword's hilt can still be seen in his palm as his arm is trapped. When his arm is freed, he's still holding the light saber, but it has been damaged.

raywest

Yeah the top part of the lightsaber is cut off by the machine and bounces off. I think that what the question asker is referring to, mistaking it for the entire saber.

lionhead

Answer: Because she was a loose end who could have conceivably undermined his carefully-constructed lie that he was working for the Allies all along.

Answer: I always took it he admired her so much and maybe even pursued a relationship with her that never came to pass. Her lying to him was a personal betrayal that drove him to strangle her. Crime of passion. Just always has been my theory.

Question: When Gregory was singing beautifully for his audition, did he really sing that well, or did he lip-sync from someone else singing?

Answer: That was not him singing, that was another kid singing.

Turangaa_Maxx

Answer: According to wiki.celebrity.fm and diaryofawimpykid.fandom.com, L.J. Benet provided the singing voice for Greg in the movie.

KeyZOid

Answer: Where did you hear that? Because on IMDb, it says that everyone EXCEPT Greg did their own singing.

Answer: That was Zachary Gordon's actual singing voice.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: When the dynamite goes off in the theatre, destroying it, there is a shot of a woman being blown out of the top window of the building screaming for a brief moment. Who was that woman and how did she get there? It couldn't have been Shosanna as she was very dead from being shot before that moment. And it wasn't the translator for Goebbels either for the same reason. Most everybody else was in the theater room or the balcony's themselves. So who was that woman?

Quantom X

Answer: I'm not entirely sure it's a woman. I slowed the scene down and the person looks like they are wearing a tuxedo. So probably a man with a high-pitched voice/scream. My best guess is that it is one of the attendees who may have excused themselves from the auditorium before all the doors were locked, and once the fire and massacre started, they were running through the corridor unable to escape and were eventually thrown out of the window by the explosion.

Phaneron

Question: Why didn't IMF just raid Ambrose's house when they realised he only had a cure and no virus?

Answer: As Ambrose says, Ethan Hunt "favours misdirection over confrontation" - Ambrose's house is heavily guarded and fortified, and an armed raid could result in the deaths of IMF personnel including Ethan and his team, or other innocent parties such as Nyah. Better to break into Biocyte covertly and destroy the virus, with a much lower risk of casualties.

Sierra1

Answer: He said "where did you come from man."

Answer: "New Divide" by Linkin Park.

Question: When the building with the hostages gets destroyed, Simon tells the police that he told John where the bodies were, with John responding that he didn't care. Clearly a blatant lie - why would the police actually take the word of a murdering psychopath like Simon considering that he would do or say anything to save himself?

Answer: Spartan didn't have authorization to go in and apprehend Phoenix to begin with. Depending on the time and manner of deaths of the hostages, it may have been impossible for the authorities to determine that they were already dead before Spartan went in guns blazing, so it would be determined that he was criminally negligent in their deaths. Whatever Phoenix had to say on the matter probably didn't even factor into Spartan's trial.

Phaneron

Answer: They didn't. They found the bodies and knowing how badly John wanted to take down Simon, they assumed Simon was telling the truth. I always felt that there was an assumption that Simon also had other planted evidence to frame John but that is never confirmed, just my hunch.

The_Iceman

Question: If they were after Kimble, why did they kill his wife? She wasn't in the way because he wasn't in the house.

Answer: Kimble was called at the last minute for an operation at the hospital unbeknownst to Sykes and Nichols. Even so, it was likely that they would kill his wife to tie up loose ends. Their plan was to kill Kimble, possibly his wife, and stage the crime as a robbery.

The only reasonable answer is that the wife found this guy's hiding spot, and that left him no choice but to act. Otherwise, he would have simply stayed in hiding until Richard came home and killed the both (while sleeping most likely, but by surprise certainly).

oldbaldyone

Question: If Captain America had to go back to return the infinity stones to balance the timeline, would he not have to go back to before Black Widow died to return the Soul Stone?

Answer: Well since he wouldn't know the exact moment she sacrificed herself, he might have shown up before then and then just had to wait for everything to play itself out before returning the stone.

Phaneron

Answer: No before Black Widow died the soul stone was still there, he had to get it back after it was taken, so after Black Widow died.

lionhead

I think the poster meant he would go back to the time he knew Black Widow and Hawkeye were aiming for, or a bit before for safety, then go there and wait until Black Widow died and Hawkeye got the stone, and then return it. It would be hard for him to watch, but then he would know when the right time was.

Right. But you also have to think that, having witnessed the events, and then seeing that the Red Skull is the guardian, that would have been a damn interesting scene to watch. Does Cap try bargaining with the Red Skull to return Black Widow to life after giving the stone back? On the other hand, the Ancient One's explanation was that the flow of time occurs simply because the stones are in the universe. I don't think it mattered where they are. She only wanted the time stone back because of how it was tied to the Sanctum. So really, Cap probably could have just thrown the stone in a ditch somewhere and been done with it. It also raises a question about the nature of Vormir as the home of the stone. We see the other stones were more or less fashioned into artifacts and out and about. This implies that they too were in some sort of temple in their raw stone form before being found, seized and manipulated into a real-world application. So does Vormir even have a mechanism for receiving the stone back once it's been claimed? And what is the soul stone's solo power, anyway? Reading people's fates like a crystal ball?

Vader47000

I don't think the red skull is really the red skull anymore, just some kind of ghost of whats left of him. However the stone gets returned is irrelevant, yes he could even just leave it in a ditch somewhere. He didn't return other stones in their original form either, except the time stone. These timelines don't continue on as the original one. According to the comics the soul stone is sentient and everyone sacrificed to obtain is has their soul trapped inside the gem. Cap and the others of course don't know that (although Hulk must theoretically know having used it) or in the MCU this does not apply. When possessing it you can control any life and read their souls (their feelings and desires). One can also revert living things back their original state (like Nebula for example).

lionhead

Question: How can Pete understand what Elliott is saying when he speaks gibberish?

Answer: He has a bond with Eliot so he understands what he is saying.

Relics - S6-E4

Question: When Scotty was at the door of the Holodeck, he calls for the bridge of the Enterprise, "no bloody A, B, C, or D." When the doors open, it's the bridge of the original ship. However, he was Chief Engineer on the refit Enterprise (no A). Besides the obvious "it's in the script", why didn't the computer ask for a distinction?

Movie Nut

Answer: As a product of 24th Century technology, the ship's computer is an example of extremely advanced artificial intelligence that is capable of intuiting deeper meanings based on inflection and speaker personality profiles. The computer probably (and correctly) intuited from Scotty's profile and the exasperated tone of his voice that he meant the original, unmodified Enterprise NCC 1701.

Charles Austin Miller

Yesterday's Enterprise - S3-E15

Question: The ever-popular gag in this episode is that Worf consumes prune juice for the first time and declares that it is a "warrior's drink," to Guinan's amusement. However, Worf was adopted as a child by human parents, he grew up on Earth, he was highly educated and graduated Star Fleet Academy on Earth. Given the reputation of prune juice as a natural laxative throughout human history, how could Worf not know what prune juice is, having lived most of his life on Earth?

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: There's nothing to indicate that Worf had never heard of prune juice before, just that he had never tried it before. He doesn't recognize the smell or taste of the drink as prune juice because he's never had it before. But that doesn't mean he has no idea what prune juice is, or that it is used as a natural laxative. In a later episode Guinan directly asks Worf's parents why he never had prune juice prior to her serving him the drink. They answer that as a child Worf refused to eat human food of any kind, everything he consumed had to be Klingon. Other episodes show that Klingons tend to despise human food in general for being bland. It stands to reason that someone who shows no outward interest in human food might not know what prune juice is usually used for. But then again, maybe he does know and he doesn't care because prune juice is delicious to him.

BaconIsMyBFF

Thanks for reminding me about that later episode, although I think the later prune juice explanation from Worf's adoptive parents was scripted to address many fan questions along the same lines as my own.

Charles Austin Miller

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.